Angelina Jolie took her daughters Zahara and Shiloh with her on a “heartbreaking” visit to a Syrian refugee camp on Sunday (28Jan18).
The Hollywood superstar visited the Za’atari camp in Jordan to speak to refugees from Syria’s long and bloody civil war.
Speaking at a news conference, she said her daughters Zahara, 13, and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, 11, had asked to come with her to the camp and had happily played with child refugees while she carried out her work as a special envoy for the United Nations (UN) refugee agency.
“My daughters Zahara and Shiloh asked to come with me today,” Angelina revealed. “They’ve spent time today speaking and playing with children their own age who have been forced from their homes, whose family members have been killed or have disappeared, and who are struggling with trauma and illness, but who at the end of the day are just children, with the same hopes and rights as children in any other nation.”
The actress turned activist, who has made several visits to refugees in Jordan since the start of the civil war in 2011, said it was “heartbreaking” to return again and witness the “hardship and trauma” caused by the conflict.
The Maleficent star, 42, also used her visit to warn that funding for the UN’s refugee programs were well short of the organization’s targets and that world leaders had to work hard to end the war and enable Syrian families to return home.
“Humanitarian aid is not a long-term solution. No one wants to get off aid more than a Syrian family,” she explained. “A viable political settlement is the only way to create the conditions for Syrians to be able to return to their homes, to end the human suffering and the strain on host countries.”
More than 5.5 million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries to escape the ongoing war between forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, rebel groups and Islamic State militants. With 650,000 of those housed in Jordan and more than 78,000 living in the Za’atari camp Angelina visited.
